Government announces measures to tackle gender pay gap

Employment Minister
Tessa Jowell announced measures to simplify and speed up equal pay laws this
morning.

The Government’s
key aim is to reduce the red tape for women seeking to address unequal pay through
industrial tribunals. Women making claims as a group against the same employer will
now only have to fill out one form, instead of all of them filling one out.

Furthermore, tribunals
will be encouraged to use an assessor to give expert advice rather than demand
a time-consuming formal report.

The Government will
also provide £145,000 to the Union Learning Fund to train trade union
representatives to perform pay reviews in workplace.

“There are more
than 12.5 million women working every today but they do not always get a fair
deal. For every £1 a man earns for working full-time a women earns just 82p,
that is not acceptable.

“Simplifying
legislation and making it faster and fairer is an important step in tackling
the pay gap,” said Jowell.